NEWS Newsin brief
WE TAKE A LOOK AT ALL THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS AFFECTING THE SME SECTOR IN IRELAND
OVER 50PC OF COMPANIES STRIVE TO IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Des Crowther, CEO of IIPMM and Dr Paul Davis, programme director, MBS Strategic Procurement, DCU Business School
EU contract won to aid public sector tendering
Dublin City University (DCU) Business School and the Irish Institute of Purchasing & Materials Management (IIPMM) have sealed a €1.4m EU contract to help small indigenous suppliers win more business from the public sector. Te initiative is part of an international EU €3.7m programme shared with the University of Bangor, Wales. It comes under INTERREG, an Ireland Wales Territorial Co-operation Programme that aims to further develop Irish- Welsh economic co-operation and employment. “Te Irish public sector market is worth an estimated
€9bn currently, but many small indigenous suppliers feel excluded from it because of the complexity and time- consuming tendering process,” said Dr Paul Davis of DCU Business School. “At the same time, public sector procure- ment needs to be better trained on how to manage tenders from small indigenous suppliers.”
A Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) survey has revealed the significance of energy cost reduction, and implementation of energy-efficiency initiatives for businesses. It demonstrated that businesses on average achieved
12pc in cost savings. Some 1,000 large, medium and small businesses throughout the country participated in the survey, which revealed that more than 45pc of medium and large companies now have a committed employee or group of employees overseeing energy consumption and conducting initiatives to increase energy efficiency. Brian Motherway, chief operations officer at SEAI,
said: “More businesses are actively seeking to reduce their energy costs. Businesses participating in our programmes have reduced their costs by an average of 10–20pc. However, it is also evident that many com- panies are not taking the necessary action despite the opportunity for economic gains. “A further €300m of energy savings can be achieved
if all of Ireland’s small to medium-sized enterprises start to better manage their energy use,” he added.
Services sector shows improvement
Te end of the cold weather snap and continued growth in exporting has helped the services sector to rebound in Janu- ary 2011.
Te NCB Services Purchasing Managers’ Index recorded 53.9, up from 47.4 in December. 2010 Te 50 mark separates
8 OWNER MANAGER VOL 4 ISSUE 1 2011
growth from contraction. Te figure in January is the strongest seen since last July. Tere was a fall in the number of people employed in the
sector, but the rate of decline was much slower than the previous month.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52